Jorge Lorenzo took all the lucky
sevens at Brno. In an uneventful (ie:
dull) MotoGP race he chalked up
victory number seven of the year to
extend his points lead over second-placed
Dani Pedrosa to 77. His margin was not
quite seven seconds ... but it might as well
have been.
Pedrosa's Repsol Honda was on pole, and
as usual he leapt of the line to lead into the
first corner. But before the lap was done
Lorenzo was ahead, and that was that.
Pedrosa, over-cautious under braking on
a cold tyre, was actually pushed to third by
fellow front-row starter Ben Spies (Monster
Tech 3 Yamaha), but on lap two he was in
front of the rookie again, and by the fifth
the Spanish duo were a second clear and
stretching.
Dani stayed close to the Fiat Yamaha for
the first eight laps. The pace was not fast --
Lorenzo blamed a steady wind and a rain-
washed surface. But Pedrosa was suffering
wheel-spin problems, and was unable to
attack.
Lorenzo had crashed heavily in qualifying
while trying for pole, escaping unhurt. But,
he explained, his error made him angry,
"and when I am angry I am faster. It can be
dangerous with more risk, but today it was
okay.
"I pushed, and when I saw the gap to Dani
grow a bit, I pushed harder. I thought he
would attack because the lap times were
quite slow .. but in reality I was close to the
limit."
In this way, the gap steadily stretched,
while a crowd officially numbered at
148,120 waited for some excitement.
Not much was forthcoming. There was a
change of position on lap nine, when Casey
Stoner (Marlboro Ducati) found his way past
Spies for third. He shook the American off
three laps later, but was by now five seconds
behind Pedrosa. He'd been troubled in
practice trying to find a balance for the bike,
and though by the end he thought he had
done so, his plan to verify the progress and
even improve were scotched when race-
morning warm-up was wet:
"I kept pushing the front ... but when I saw
Dovizioso going down I realised everybody
was having problems," he said.
That earlier frisson could have been a
lot more dramatic, but thankfully wasn't.
Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) had
got ahead of Stoner on lap three and was
looking at catching Spies when he crashed
on the exit of one of the downhill corners.
He landed in the middle of the track, and
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